


The Letter

by L1ttleSilkworm



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Rimming, Smut, Valery being vulnerable, Valery overthinking things, Valery's POV, Valoris, references to period-specific homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:49:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24264625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L1ttleSilkworm/pseuds/L1ttleSilkworm
Summary: Valery and Boris share a spontaneous night of passion, but Boris departs for Moscow first thing in the morning. Missing a chance to find out how Boris feels about what happened, Valery makes some choices that cause him to spend the next four days being a lovesick worrywart.
Relationships: Valery Legasov/Boris Shcherbina
Comments: 17
Kudos: 71





	The Letter

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a lovely photo of Valery sitting on a concrete block, smiling softly to himself and holding something in his pocket. It prompted me to try writing from Valery's POV for the first time.
> 
> My special gratitude to my dearest Comrade @shark-from-the-park for beta-reading my story, taking time to fix my verb tenses and providing generous encouragement and lovely, thoughtful commentary.
> 
> Please note that this work concerns strictly the characters created by Craig Mazin's imagination and by Jared Harris' and Stellan Skarsgard's inimitable acting talent, and categorically not the historical figures. If Valoris is not your thing, please refrain from hassling me about it. 18+ readers only please.

Valery woke up feeling not particularly well rested, which was something he was accustomed to, and rolled onto his side. Without having properly opened his eyes, the scientist reached for his glasses, which he always left sitting on the stack of books and folders by his bed.

A sudden loud crash jolted him fully awake. Valery realized he’d just knocked over a heavy lamp from the nightstand. Except... _his_ bed didn’t have a lamp - or a nightstand, for that matter - beside it.

_Oh… oh, OH!_

_Oh, no._

Valery groaned and pressed his face into a pillow, shaking his head and rather wishing for all of this to be a dream.

He was in Boris’ bed. And he was naked. And Boris was not here. He had left for one of his forays to Moscow first thing in the morning, Valery remembered. And he wouldn’t be back for four days as he had to deal with the Bureau's business.

As Valery’s consciousness tried to piece the shreds of last night together, his dismayed groans grew louder and louder.

He remembered how they’d stayed up past midnight, studying the maps rolled out on the floor and there was a moment - _the moment_ , really - when Valery lost his balance a bit as he was pointing something out to Boris on the far corner of the map and momentarily leaned into Boris for just enough time to inhale his scent, which was so warm and calming and _beckoned_ to him, and Boris didn’t flinch nor push him away but rather, stayed right where he was, while Valery, maybe a little drunk on Boris’ scent, looked the Deputy Chairman straight in the eye and they faced each other like that for a good long while, both standing on all fours like two cats locked in a motionless battle for dominance, and Valery was the first to turn away, but then Boris reached out with his large warm palm and cupped the back of Valery’s neck, stroking it with his thumb just so, and it was definitely Valery this time who closed the distance between them, and just like that, he was kissing the older man furiously, inhaling him, gulping him down as if his life depended on it, and the next thing he remembered, Boris was everywhere around him, _on him_ , his huge hands roaming all over Valery’s body, even the parts of it Valery really didn’t care for, _especially_ the parts he really didn’t care for, and somehow it made him giddy all over and he broke their kiss to undo Boris’ tie and the man _allowed him_ to do that, and he pulled his suspenders down and Boris allowed that, too, and then he undid Boris’ shirt buttons and stroked the silvery hairs on his broad chest, and touched, lightly, a pale jagged scar that ran from Boris’ rib cage down the right side of his stomach, and he didn’t even have to ask because he knew what shrapnel scars looked like, because his father came back from the war with the one just like this, and Valery wasn’t quite sure how, but he still somehow ended up naked before Boris even had his trousers off, and Boris laid him down on the carpet, both of them having to keep completely silent of course, and not even _think_ of using the bed with all its squeaky springs, because there was always someone listening, someone sitting in a dusty room far away, working on a crossword puzzle maybe, but only until the microphones registered something out of ordinary, and then that someone would be all ears, because who doesn’t want to do a good job, and so Valery had to stay quiet even as he was being gently explored by the Ukrainian's warm hands and lips, and Boris seemed to _really_ be enjoying everything he was seeing, although Valery was hard pressed to believe that about his body, and besides, no one ever took the time to look at him or touch him quite like this anyway, even when he was in his twenties and a great deal thinner and desiring older men so much even then, except that most of them would not even ask his name and would be gone so soon after what was supposed to happen, happened, even as Valery longed so desperately to hold hands or wake up in the same bed with someone, but he grew accustomed, with time, to the idea that he would never get to have that, not in this world, and he learned to be content with what he had, with his science, and his students, and his cat, and his plants, and he did pretty well for himself, or so he thought, and yet Boris admiring his body in that moment with gentle concentration was like nothing Valery had ever known, and _oh_ , not to even mention the way that Boris had flipped him over and put his mouth on him in a way that it had never occurred to Valery to even fantasize about before, except that now he knew it was the most wonderful thing in the world, and yet somehow he had just enough sense left in him to remember to be quiet, although he had to bite his own wrist pretty hard to remind himself, and it was a good thing he did, because Boris had reached for some butter from the dinner table and in the next moment the older man’s thick finger was inside him, careful, and sure, and thorough, and then there were two fingers, which made Valery bite down on his wrist even harder and push back into Boris’ hand to show him he was ready, _so ready_ , making Boris roll him on his back again and lean over him, his gaze darker and heavier now, and utterly mesmerizing, and Valery opened his thighs and let Boris in, and the older man reached his hand to brush a sweat-soaked lock of hair from Valery’s forehead just as he took him, deep and slow, because going faster would make too much noise, Valery guessed, but he soon realized that slow was perfect in a way he couldn’t have imagined, so perfect, in fact, that when Boris’ hand closed around Valery’s cock, moving up and down it in an assured motion, it felt like Valery’s entire conscious had split open like a well of light out of nowhere, and the light coursed through his body from his toes all the way to his lips, which Boris very prudently covered with his, muffling Valery’s grateful sobs and maybe even some of his own, as he thrust hard inside Valery and trembled and spilled into him, and Valery was suddenly so sleepy that he only barely remembered a cool wet towel being run over his belly and his behind, and Boris pulling him, half-comatose at this point, onto his large bed, and that was definitely the last thing that Valery could remember...

The scientist found his glasses at last and sat up on the bed. With a blanket around his hips, he reached to grab his briefs and undershirt from the floor and hastily put them on. The sensation of his own nakedness made him think again of _the ways_ he was with Boris last night, and the memory made him whimper softly and cover his face with his hands.

On his way to the bathroom, Valery discovered yet another disquieting surprise. There was a sheet of paper, twice folded, sitting on the desk. The paper had a large “V.” on its side. Valery’s heart sank. He cautiously walked around the table, making sure to not get too close to it as if the letter was a piece of radioactive graphite, and disappeared into the bathroom.

_I won’t be able to bear it. Not now, not this morning._

The mere possibility of Boris rejecting him, of telling him, via a piece of paper, all dry and business-like - and all too reasonable of course - that it will be best if both of them forget last night, was entirely too crushing to contemplate.

_I won’t make it through today if I read it now._ _I’ve_ _got to wait till the evening. Not now. Evening._

Valery showered, had his morning cigarette, checked his watch, stuffed the letter into his pocket - lest someone was to search the suite in his absence - and hurried downstairs.

The day dragged on and the letter in his pocket caused him an almost physical discomfort - not unlike the carpet burns on his behind and lower back from last night. Valery thought of reading it during his lunch break, but when he considered the non-negligible risk of breaking down in tears in front of Tarakanov, he abandoned the idea. 

Back at the suite at night, Valery lit a cigarette as he stood by the window looking at the jagged black outlines of pine trees that stretched all the way to the horizon, standing out sharply against the moonlit sky. He thought of how different this night looked in Moscow right now, with all its lights and noise and splendor, what it would be like to be there right now, and not here, and to never have been here in the first place. 

Valery felt lonelier than he had ever felt in his entire life. With a sigh, he took the letter out of his pocket and placed it back on the same spot on the desk where he found it.

Defeated, he climbed into Boris’ bed and laid on his side, facing away from the letter, which seemed to stare him down from the tabletop, as if passing a silent judgement on his character. Valery closed his eyes and imagined instead how it would feel to have Boris’ sturdy, comforting frame pressing into him from behind, one strong arm wrapped around Valery’s body, resting on his soft belly perhaps, and another arm cradling his head. As Valery’s eyelids grew heavy, he thought of how warm and safe it would feel, and how perfect it would be to fall asleep feeling the older man’s steady breaths lightly tickling the back of his neck.

Valery woke up the next morning with his mind made up. He wouldn't read the letter until the night before Boris’ return. Though it was merely a temporary stay of his execution, the decision brought him immense relief. After all, it wouldn’t change things one bit whether he read it today or three days from now. With the letter’s power over Valery diminished down to a vague, nagging ache in the back of his consciousness, the scientist continued to abandon his little cot in favor of Boris’ large bed, where he fell asleep every night dreaming of the older man’s touch, his scent, his warm, comforting strength.

But time is not something one can bargain with - not for long, anyway - and the last night before Boris’ return was upon him all too soon.

That night, Valery stayed in the trailer until late, finding more and more things to occupy himself with, and the UAZ departed for the hotel without him. The scientist had about an hour to kill before he could catch a ride back into town with the evening shift of the miners’ crew, so he ventured out for a walk around the cooling pond. 

The air was starting to smell like summer. The moon was out and Valery could hear the owls hooting in the nearby forest. It occurred to him that this was the first time he’d ever heard birds at Chernobyl. It was almost possible to forget for a moment that this was the epicenter of a planetary disaster.

As Valery sat down on a concrete block on an empty patch of grass, away from the bright lights of the power plant, he finally pulled out the worn, dog-eared piece of paper that had tormented him from inside his jacket pocket for four days, unfolded it and read:

_Valera,_

_Do me a favor and sleep in my bed in my absence. I expect to find you there when I return._

_Yours,_

_B._

After the fourth or fifth read, and his heart rate returning to something more normal, the scientist blinked away the tears, folded the letter carefully and put it back into his pocket. 

He held his still trembling hand reverently against the paper and looked around, making sure he wasn't being watched. Even with no one in sight, Valery still cautiously lowered his head before allowing a smile to pass his lips as he whispered softly-

_My Borya._

__


End file.
